Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In an article for Huffington Post, Miles Mogulescu wrote the following about Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan:
He comes off like a Midwest choir boy who grew up busing tables and just wants to help unemployed 20-year-olds get jobs and move out of their parents’ house. This ‘aw shucks’ act may play well among heartland voters who could swing the election.
But Ryan lies like a hooker telling her john that she loves him. And given a media that tends to cover the horse race rather than the substance, there’s a good chance he could lie his way all the way to the vice presidency.
Mogulescu—among others—has written and spoken about the number of inaccuracies and untruths included in the speech that Paul Ryan gave at the Republican National Convention last week.
Sally Kohn of Fox News wrote:
…to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.
The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.
In Paul Ryan’s breathtakingly dishonest speech, James Downie wrote:
Yesterday, at an ABC News panel, Mitt Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Wednesday’s speech from Paul Ryan certainly took that disdain for truth to heart, as his address was filled with falsehoods from start to finish.
Pat Garofalo of ThinkProgress wrote that Ryan’s speech “was riddled with lies.”
Matthew Dowd, a former chief political strategist for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004, also criticized Ryan for the falsehoods included in his speech on ABC’s This Week. He said that “at some point, the truth should matter”:
DOWD: Paul Ryan, what he did in his speech, I think so stretched the truth. And I like Paul Ryan, have a lot of great respect for Paul Ryan, but the elements that he said about closing the GM plant which closed before Barack Obama took President [sic], about the Simpson-Bowles bill which he opposed and then all of a sudden he faults Barack Obama for. At some point, the truth should matter…He was trying to convey that Barack Obama was responsible for the closing of that GM plant and that isn’t true.
Aviva Shen provided us with this list of what she thinks are “Ryan’s most glaring lies from his speech”:
1. “A downgraded America.” Ryan blamed the president for the nation’s credit downgrade in August 2011 after Republicans threatened to allow the government to default on its debt for the first time in history. But the ratings agency explicitly blamed “Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal.”
2. “More debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined.” Romney has made the almost identical claim, that Obama has amassed more debt “as almost all of the other presidents combined.” But their math doesn’t add up: when Obama took office, the national debt was $10.626 trillion. It has increased to slightly above $15 trillion.
3. Shuttered General Motors plant is “one more broken promise.” Ryan described a GM plant that closed down in his hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin, and blamed Obama for breaking his promise to keep the plant open when he visited during his campaign. But Obama never made that promise, and the plant shut down in December 2008, before Obama even took office.
4. Obama “did exactly nothing” on Bowles-Simpson. Ryan said, “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” In fact, Ryan was instrumental in sabotaging the commission, leading the other House Republicans in voting against the plan.
5. “$716 billion, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.” Ryan’s favorite lie is a deliberate distortion of Obamacare’s savings from eliminating inefficiencies. Furthermore, Ryan’s own plan for Medicare includes these savings. Romney has vowed to restore these cuts, which would render the trust fund insolvent 8 years ahead of schedule.
6. “The greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Ryan closed the speech with an invocation of social responsibility, saying, “The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” However, numerous clergy members have condemned Ryan’s budget plan as “cruel,” and “an immoral disaster” because of its devastating cuts in social programs the poor and sick rely on. Meanwhile, Ryan would give ultra-rich individuals and corporations $3 trillion in tax breaks.
Paul Krugman feels that Ryan’s “big lie” is his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Krugman claims that it would actually “kill the program.”
I understand that politicians often fudge the truth, leave out details, take their opponents’ comments out of context, etc., in order to win votes. But one “untruth” that Ryan told recently in an interview with Hugh Hewitt confounded me. Ryan claimed that he had once run a marathon in under three hours.
Excerpt from Ryan’s interview with Hewitt:
HH: That’s okay. Hey, in high school, what did you do in high school? Were you a speech and debate guy? Were you a bandie? What were you?
PR: No, I was student government and athletics, honor society, you know, that kind of thing. I was kind of a combination. I was class president my junior year, I was the school board rep my senior year. I lettered in varsity, you know, my first year in high school, mostly soccer and track. I was a distance runner and a soccer player. So kind of well-rounded. I can’t, I can play a cowbell. That’s about it for instruments.
HH: Are you still running?
PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or yes.
HH: But you did run marathons at some point?
PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
PR: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.
Well, it turns out that Ryan has run but one marathon in his life—and that was when he was just twenty years old and in college. He did not run that marathon in under three hours as he had claimed. He did—in fact—run the marathon in just over four hours.
So why, I wonder, would someone who is running for vice president and who knows the press will likely pick up on everything he says lie about something so trivial?
It appears that James Fallows of The Atlantic wonders too. He wrote: “the mystery in this case is why someone just stepping into the spotlight of national attention would risk telling an (a) entirely unnecessary and (b) very easily disprovable lie. It doesn’t make “normal” political sense, where you lie to get out of a jam, or because you think you can’t be caught. ..”
He continued:
We’ve all exaggerated to make ourselves look better. You’ve probably done it. I know I have. (Let’s not think about the whole category of “what happens on first dates.”) But out of prudent self-protection, most people have a sense of “situational awareness” when it comes to self-burnishment. Somebody you’re talking to in a bar, and you’re never likely to see again, is in one category. Somebody interviewing you for national broadcast is in another. That is what I’m having a hard time fully understanding.
You’re on a nationwide show. You’re one of the handful of people most prominently in the national eye. You know that everything you say is going to be recorded, parsed, and examined. And still — last week, not at a freshman mixer or in a Jaycees speech somewhere — you happily reel off a claim that is impressive enough to get people’s interest and admiration, and specific enough to be easily testable.
I don’t understand this. I can understand, while obviously deploring, why Bill Clinton brazenly said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” on national TV. It was a flat-out lie that to him might have seemed necessary to his survival. I can understand the little embellishments politicians and everyone else make — especially when these occur in early days of the campaign, or in odd corners where you think no one is listening.
That’s why I mention it one more time: This doesn’t fit the normal model of “efficient” political or human truth-shaving. It was a lie that was totally unnecessary — if he’d said he had run a five-hour marathon, we’d still know that he’s physically very fit. And telling it in his current state of 24/7-scrutiny and prominence was either unbelievably naive (“no one will ever double-check this”) or plain reckless (“I don’t care if they do”). Unless we get into Jonah Lehrer territory — that is, the realm of people who self-destructively take needless risks with the truth — I just am amazed.
Are you amazed too? What do you think about Paul Ryan’s marathon claim?
SOURCES
Lie or Mistake? Paul Ryan’s Marathoning Past (The New Yorker)
How Fast Can Paul Ryan Run? (The New Yorker)
The Real Mystery of Paul Ryan’s Marathon Time by James Fallows (The Atlantic)
Three ‘Post-Truth’ Related Items (The Atlantic)
Paul Ryan Has Not Run Sub-3:00 Marathon (Runner’s World)
Paul Ryan Interview (Hugh Hewitt)
Did Paul Ryan Really Run a Sub-Three-Hour Marathon? No, He Didn’t. (Slate)
Paul Ryan: Lying Liar (Huffington Post)
Paul Ryan Address: Convention Speech Built On Demonstrably Misleading Assertions (Huffington Post)
Fox News: Paul Ryan’s Speech “Greatest Number of Blatant Lies” (Daily Kos)
Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words (Fox News)
Bush Chief Political Strategist: Paul Ryan’s Speech Was Full Of Lies (ThinkProgress)
6 Worst Lies In Paul Ryan’s Speech (ThinkProgress)
Paul Ryan’s breathtakingly dishonest speech (Washington Post)
Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches (New York Times)
The Medicare Killers (New York Times)
Paul Ryan: Fact Check Fury Could Threaten Political Brand
By GREGORY J. KRIEG
Sept. 5, 2012
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/paul-ryan-fact-check-fury-threaten-political-brand/story?id=17153262#.UEgF-6PYEUo
Expert:
Having spent the last 14 years in Congress building a political brand rooted in his avowed devotion to telling “hard truths,” Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan entered this election season as no one’s favorite to be accused of habitual dishonesty on the campaign trail.
The Wisconsin congressman’s positions on debt and deficit reduction have never been about political posturing, supporters say. Rather, they are the logical result of years spent mining the numbers, just a man and his calculator, making dire calculations about the country’s fiscal path.
And yet, less than four weeks since being introduced as Mitt Romney’s running mate, Ryan has given rise to a furious fact-check revolution, with analysts warning his claims — about everything from Health Care reform to his best marathon time — could imperil what many had painted as his cardinal virtue: Honesty.
It’s a stark departure from just two months ago, when The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza called Ryan the leader of the Republican party’s “attack and propose faction,” an ideas man (and counterpoint to some of his obstructionist Republican colleagues) who had written and passed budgets in the House and drafted two versions of his fiscal manifesto, “The Roadmap.”
On December 10, 2010, Ryan penned a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a grant application for the Kenosha Community Health Center, Inc to develop a new facility in Racine, Wisconsin, an area within Ryan’s district. “The proposed new facility, the Belle City Neighborhood Health Center, will serve both the preventative and comprehensive primary healthcare needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without healthcare,”…
In public, Ryan has cultivated a profile as one of health reform’s most outspoken critics. He savages the Affordable Care Act as an example of “Washington’s reckless spending spree,” as “irresponsible,” and has warned repeatedly that it would place the “federal government squarely in the middle of health-care decisions.”
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Kenosha and Racine are in Paul Ryan’s district.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge
The bridge to nowhere wasn’t built, but Alaska got the money to use on other projects. Senator Ted Stevens died in a plane crash.
rafflaw,
I’d say that Romney picked the perfect running mate. They are like two peas in a pod.
Elaine,
Ryan has a real truthiness problem, not to mention being a hypocrite.
Exclusive: Paul Ryan Quietly Requested Obamacare Cash
Lee Fang on September 5, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169757/exclusive-paul-ryan-quietly-requested-obamacare-cash
Excerpt:
Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan is barnstorming the country, promising to repeal every provision of the Affordable Care Act if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected. But a letter he wrote to the Obama administration may undermine this message.
On December 10, 2010, Ryan penned a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a grant application for the Kenosha Community Health Center, Inc to develop a new facility in Racine, Wisconsin, an area within Ryan’s district. “The proposed new facility, the Belle City Neighborhood Health Center, will serve both the preventative and comprehensive primary healthcare needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without healthcare,”…
The grant Ryan requested was funded directly by the Affordable Care Act, better known simply as healthcare reform or Obamacare.
The letter, among several obtained by The Nation and The Investigative Fund through a Freedom of Information Act request, is a stark reminder that even the most ardent opponents of Obamacare privately acknowledge many of the law’s benefits.
Federally funded health clinics have long provided a broad range of vital medical, dental and mental health services to underprivileged communities across the country, regardless of a persons’ ability to pay. To meet the goal of expanding coverage, the Affordable Care Act provides for a sweeping expansion of such clinics, including $9.5 billion for operating costs to existing community health centers and $1.5 billion for new construction.
In public, Ryan has cultivated a profile as one of health reform’s most outspoken critics. He savages the Affordable Care Act as an example of “Washington’s reckless spending spree,” as “irresponsible,” and has warned repeatedly that it would place the “federal government squarely in the middle of health-care decisions.”The grant Ryan requested was funded directly by the Affordable Care Act, better known simply as healthcare reform or Obamacare.
The letter, among several obtained by The Nation and The Investigative Fund through a Freedom of Information Act request, is a stark reminder that even the most ardent opponents of Obamacare privately acknowledge many of the law’s benefits.
Federally funded health clinics have long provided a broad range of vital medical, dental and mental health services to underprivileged communities across the country, regardless of a persons’ ability to pay. To meet the goal of expanding coverage, the Affordable Care Act provides for a sweeping expansion of such clinics, including $9.5 billion for operating costs to existing community health centers and $1.5 billion for new construction.
In public, Ryan has cultivated a profile as one of health reform’s most outspoken critics. He savages the Affordable Care Act as an example of “Washington’s reckless spending spree,” as “irresponsible,” and has warned repeatedly that it would place the “federal government squarely in the middle of health-care decisions.”
The Chrysler plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin was completely dismantled and disappeared. Why didn’t Paul Ryan mention that?
Quote of the Day: Paul Ryan Misses by a Factor of 30
—By Kevin Drum
Tue Sep. 4, 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/quote-day-paul-ryan-misses-factor-30
From Paul Ryan, on the stump in North Carolina yesterday:
In 1980 under Jimmy Carter, 330,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy. Last year, under President Obama’s failed leadership, 1.4 million businesses filed for bankruptcy.
It turns out this isn’t true. In 1980 there were 43,000 business bankruptcies. Last year there were 47,000.
But here’s what’s weird: Ryan’s numbers are right if you include both personal and business bankruptcies. So why not just say that? Why not just say “individuals and businesses” in the sentences above. It would still have the same impact. There’s really no reason to mislead his audience this way.
It’s sort of like his marathon whopper. Why claim he ran a sub-three-hour marathon? To convince people that he’s in really good shape? Well, he is in really good shape. He doesn’t need to bother inventing weird stuff like this to make that point. And no one’s going to change their vote because of his marathon prowess anyway.
I dunno. Maybe Ryan doesn’t have the steel trap mind everyone thinks he does. Maybe he forgets a lot of stuff. Maybe he likes his applause lines a little too much. Or maybe he’s just really sloppy. It’s a little hard to figure out.
Paul Ryan and the Post-Truth Convention Speech
By James Fallows
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/paul-ryan-and-the-post-truth-convention-speech/261775/
Excerpt:
Paul Ryan’s speech was well-written, well- delivered, and well-received. All of that was evident to anyone watching on TV. It had a number of nice smilingly vicious hit lines — starting with the masterful “staring up at the faded Obama posters” riff — plus a note of encouraging uplift at the end.
It was also profoundly dishonest in ways large and small.
Small: telling the sad story of the closing of the Janesville GM plant, and clearly implying that this was one more casualty of the Obama-unemployment era. Whereas of course the plant was shuttered before Obama even took office.
Medium: telling that story on the assumption that no one would say, “Wait a minute: wasn’t Obama the guy who was pushing the big auto-industry bailout, which your nominee and your party opposed? So wouldn’t there have been a lot more closed plants if you’d had your way?”
Large: blasting Obama for not enacting the outlook of the Simpson-Bowles commission, without noting that Ryan himself was on the commission and voted against its recommendations because they included tax increases as well as spending cuts.
Large: blasting Obama for proposed cuts in Medicare without noting that Ryan has proposed those same cuts and much more.
Let’s assume that Ryan knows the “real” answer on these points. If he’s from Janesville, he knows when the plant shut down. If he was on the Simpson-Bowles Commission, he knows how he voted. So just as a personal matter, I wonder how he convinced himself it was OK to say things he knew were provably wrong in front of tens of millions of people.
– If I were writing about the Janesville plant in an Atlantic article, I’d know with 100% certainty that one of our fact-checkers, probably Sue Parilla, would step in to say: Wait a minute, you can’t write that! It actually closed before Obama was in office.
– If I were writing it in a blog post, I’d think: Wait a minute, a lot of people are going to know the real story. I better put in a clause showing I’m aware of it too, or else people will rip apart my claim.
– If I were writing it for someone else to give in a speech, I’d think: Wait a minute, this guy is going to be pissed if I set him up to tell a provable lie in front of an audience.
– And if I were somehow in a position to say this myself before a huge audience, I’d worry about someone saying, “Wait a minute, I’m from Janesville too, and…” Or “wait a minute, didn’t you vote against Simpson-Bowles yourself?”
http://www.paulryantimecalculator.com/?submitted=yes&time=9%3A12&distance=marathon&gender=m
Now I feel proud.
Paul Ryan Time Calculator
http://www.paulryantimecalculator.com/
James in LA 1, September 3, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Bron, utterly fascinating, as much as it is unverifiable. So, to carry on that spirit, I will add my own anecdote: a dear friend of mine since high school worked for about a dozen years as a server at a place called the Bohoemian Grove in northern California (Mote Rio) where Republicans gathered to h’rumph the times and select their leaders, including Presidents. My friend, Chris, claims to have had conversations with the likes of Dole, Kemp and even NIxon! His reflections mirror yours in that the GOP is very choosy about its leaders. Primaries are just a formality. He worked there when they chose Dole and W, for whom they had the same plans as Ryan. Trouble is, W was, how shall one say, less than a dependable intellect.
But that also seems to be changing. This is not your father’s GOP. This is something altogether different and in dire need of a straight-jacket.
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George W. is an eternal adolescent. The human brain doesn’t fully mature until the mid-twenties, but sometimes it gets stuck. W is an affable eternal adolescent. Paul Ryan’s brain is fully matured.
James in LA,
Chicago is otherwise as awesome town. Go during Taste of Chicago and listen to the Blues. It will cure most anything.
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You’re full of sh*t.
Bron 1, September 3, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Dont believe what you hear or see in the press or anywhere on the internet, the republican party is not behind Mitt Romney. Ryan is their choice, bought and paid for by the Kochs.
Fear the Kochchurian candidate.
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I don’t trust Paul Ryan.
ID707,
So, understand. I am for the internet. Hopefully it will be the greatest help to mankind since Gutenberg.
It can, as I believe it will, usher in an epoch that is more important for this species than anything in the last 2,000 ýears.
I was out on the net before the Web was created. Using line commands to fetch documents. So, when the web came, I was jubilant. And still am.
So your dreams have my support. But I see the forces of evil there. The controllers of our world, the agencies of Big Brother, etc, and all highly organized and funded to increae their grip on the net and on us.
You are not the first, nor am I to see the possibilities of direct democracy. At times I feel like Moses and the promised land. If we can get there I will be content. Now, it looks doubtful.
You say:
“Only those who want to lie resist it.”
Look again, I must counter. Most who lie, USE it.
Hope you did not mean that I am lying. Did you?
PS I often offer only points of opposition. And they in no way summarize my stance on the whole spectra of problems we face.
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Information is power, and it runs both ways.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/04/1127521/-Biden-on-Romney-Ryan-Medicare-plan-It-s-vouchercare
It’s hard to know which witch is bewitched, Ryan or Sisters of Evil!
Q: So you don’t know how much gold that salamander was guarding?
A: Not from first-hand knowledge, no. But–
==================================
There isn’t any gold in Fort Knox.
Cross-examination:
++++++++++++++
Q: Was this virgin’s mother also a virgin?
================================
No.
===
A: I’m a psychiatrist, Your Honor; that is outside the scope of my expertise.
==========================================================
Too bad for you.
===============
Q: We have ways to make you talk.
===========================
Oh, really, are you a shrink?
=======================
A: I do talk, Your Honor. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee…
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Indeed.
JUDGE: No further questions. NEXT? Ask yourself, judge. Give it some thought.
Both attorneys: That’s all we have, Your Honor. (Quietly, to each other, “Baruch HaShem”)
===============
B”H simply means “G-d Bless” in Hebrew idiom. Literally is it “Blessed is the Name” which inferrentially always means the divine name.
In the vernacular of Jewish culture, it is interchangeable as many things, like “Thank G-d” though there are other ways to say it.
Pious Jews will often respond to the question of “How are you?” with B”H. It expresses that it doesn’t matter as divine blessings we get everyday are overwhelming. Consider the lesson of Dayenu at the Passover seder as an analogy. “Your whole family was just murdered! How are you holding up?” “Baruch HaShem. (I’m still alive and they are with G-d.)” I find this all frustrating, personally, trying to get the emes (right answer) out of those people. It’s like the game of asking a non-Jew to turn on your light on Shabbos without actually asking him, which would be prohibited. “Boy, I sure wish I could ask you to turn my light with this switch right here, but alas I cannot directly ask you as it is not allowed according to the Mishnah.”
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Why am I agnostic?
JUDGE: Both are committed. Give them some meds. Do they have insurance? Make those meds generics. NEXT?
Zvyozdochka (@Zvyozdochka) 1, September 3, 2012 at 9:20 am
What are you people on about? You’ll vote Romney/Ryan in, or rather the apathetic masses will, thus;
Michael Moore: “Sorry to speak the Awful Truth: 90 million say they’re not voting Nov 6 & 2/3 of ‘em are Obama supporters. Unless that changes, Romney wins.”
From the immortal Douglas Adams: “Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
=====
You’re half correct. I agree with Tony C. Batten down the hatches.
And there’s something else. The Captain doesn’t always get a place on the lifeboat. I would have stayed in the engine room, and I was E5 enlisted.
The band also kept playing.
itchinbayDog 1, September 3, 2012 at 8:09 am
As usual, I agree with Zarathustra above. Except finding the brain with a drill would be a drain on the patience of the driller.
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Don’t steal the dog’s food. The drill might not work too good.
The dog never bit the cat unless the cat was trying to steal his food. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Is that too much?
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/since-when-did-paul-ryan-become-a-liar.html oops New York mag